The present invention relates generally to telephony, and more specifically to messaging systems.
Fundamentally, messaging systems, such as voice mail systems, have not changed from when they were initially introduced to consumers. Calling parties leave voice messages on a messaging system and called parties retrieve the messages at convenient times. Recently, messaging systems have implemented speech-to-text and text-to-speech conversions. A system utilizing speech-to-text conversion allows a called party to retrieve a message as text, where the message was originally left in voice form. For example, a called party may access a web page to retrieve a message converted from speech to text. A called party may also receive an email having the text corresponding to the message originally left in voice form. A system utilizing text-to-speech conversion allows a called party to retrieve an audio message, where the message was originally left as text. For example, a called party may use a telephone to retrieve the audio message.
Existing messaging systems may be viewed as passive in nature. A passive messaging system is a messaging system that does not perform actions based on the contents of the message, but instead only enables a called party to access messages. For example, if a calling party leaves a voice mail message indicating that the called party should review several web pages, the called party may need to listen to the voice mail message several times in order to write down the web site locations, e.g., the Uniform Resource Locators, or URLs. The called party may then retrieve the web pages before calling the calling party back. Further, if the called party does not know the calling party's contact information, the called party either has to write down the calling party's telephone number if the number was stated during the message or retrieve the calling party's contact information, such as from an address book, personal digital assistant (PDA), white pages, or yellow pages.